Back to the R word. It’s all about risk. Not just ours. Theirs, too: embedding themselves in human bodies, establishing death camps, training kids to finish the genocide, all of it crazy risky, stupid risky. Like Evan Walker, discordant, illogical, and just damn strange. The opening attacks were brutal in their efficiency, wiping out 98 percent of us, and even the 4th Wave made some sense: It’s hard to muster a meaningful resistance if you can’t trust one another. But after that, their brilliant strategy starts to unravel. Ten thousand years to plan the eradication of humans from Earth and this is the best they can come up with? That’s the question I can’t stop turning over and over in my head, and haven’t been able to, since Teacup and the night of the rats. -- Ringer as narrator
(chapter 3 paragraph 11)

Importance: This quote introduces the importance of risk while expressing confusion...